I am a member of Carly Fiorina's campaign team in New Hampshire, so understand that I have a particular viewpoint. But my observations of her have, thus far, been:
1) She prepares. Like George W. Bush, she knows what people are going to say long before they say it. She ran a telephone townhall about two months ago, as her campaign was just beginning to do the big PR circuit with the networks - the way that this worked was that members of the public who'd signed up to receive Carly-related invites and news got a long-in code for the phone and a website to run the questions. If you had a question, you clicked a queue button and if she randomly selected you, you got a five second warning (as she was still wrapping up with another caller) and then you would get to talk (your code would be unmuted). So she didn't know what you were going to ask. She fielded about thirty questions in the hour, rapid-fire...and each answer was immediate, unrehearsed and brilliant. Yes, really. I joined the campaign officially that day.
2) She is emotionally invested. I do not believe that she is some sort of robotic professional politician who is coldly manipulating the circumstances of the moment to try to impress. During the second debate, she almost lost her composure talking about Planned Parenthood (I would consider that a virtue, since I am ardently anti-abortion and have found the Center for Medical Progress reports on the misconduct and human parts trafficking of Planned Parenthood soul-crushingly disheartening). During a live townhall I attended in NH, she also almost got choked up talking about the raw potential of every human life, complete with stories of her own loved ones. This is a passionate lady, we're dealing with.
3) She is ruthlessly driven toward her goals. Sit and read some about how she moved up from secretary to CEO...the sacrifices she made and the shear effort she put into it...and then realize that she had no interest in doing this as a way to get into politics...the political motivation arrived only late and boy how fast is she learning there as well.
4) She is intimidating. Not in a bad way...it was scary even shaking her hand because you just knew that she could absolutely CRUSH you in an argument...she is laser-focused and very...very quick witted.
So...yeah...take it as a biased perspective if you prefer...but that is how I view her. I believe she will be a fantastic political leader, win or lose in this election. I do NOT impress easily when it comes to politicians...this one is special.